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  • Best Scottish Poems 2004
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Best Scottish Poems 2004

Getting in Touch with our Feminine Sides - by Tim Turnbull

{ Poem }

It’s morning and it’s just the two of us
/ in the Transit crew-bus, driving out to work,
/ past dew-hung spruce, in this…

Do You - by Gael Turnbull

{ Poem }

after Jacques Charpentreau
/
/ Do you see who dodges away,
/ disappearing into the blue?
/ That is life, on its way,
/ …

Unarmed Response - by Dilys Rose

{ Poem }

They bring in our wounded
/ flown from Baghdad to A & E
/ at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh.
/ Daffodils stand to attention
/ on Middle Meadow…

Dear Hannah… - by Seán Rafferty

{ Poem }

Dear Hannah, Time no less than space
/ would keep us, firmly, in our place.
/ I being old and sluggish, here
/ and you, so…

The Rat - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

A young man wrote a poem about a rat.
/ It was the best poem ever written about a rat.
/ To read it…

Flowers - by Helena Nelson

{ Poem }

The affair was all coming and going
/ in snatched half-hours.
/ Not seeing the need
/ he never brought flowers.
/
/ Bring me a plant,
/ I asked –…

Love - by Edwin Morgan

{ Poem }

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love
is the wolf that guards the…

Winter Visitors, Carluke - by Aonghas MacNeacail

{ Poem }

seagull in the
/ low green sunshine
/ here
/ on this high frosted ridge
/ so far
/ from skerries, trawlings, tides
/
/ the…

Hell for Poets - by Liz Lochhead

{ Poem }

It’s Hell for the poet arriving for the gig
/ Off the five thirty three to meet the organiser
/ Who claps her in…

The Chemical Wedding - by A. B. Jackson

{ Poem }

The hired van speeds down dual carriageways
/ containing us who function or don’t function
/ as chemicals trigger off and trigger on
/ the infinitely…

Facts about Things - by W. N. Herbert

{ Poem }

Things are tired.
/ Things like to lie down.
/ Things are happiest when,
/ for no reason, they collapse.
/
/ That French plastic bottle, still half-full,
/ that soft-back…

Fratres (Taking You With Me) - by Jen Hadfield

{ Poem }

I paint the low hill until I admit
/ to how the light is on it.
/ Morning’s coldest – working in thermals
/ and fleeces…

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